He’s known best as The Office’s Dwight Schrute, but this month Rainn Wilson takes on his first comedic lead as the jilted drummer of a Cleveland hair-metal band in The Rocker Jim Vickers

There were the gratuitously cliché exclamations of “Hello, Cleveland!” and liberties taken with our downtown geography (no one looks out the window of their suburban attic and sees the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum), but there is a charm to Rainn Wilson’s new movie, The Rocker, that connects with our Rust Belt hearts.

For many, it will be seeing the Rock Hall and Cleveland Browns Stadium splashed across a big screen (most of the movie was filmed in Canada, but Wilson shot scenes here for two days last summer). Others will connect with the story of a 1980s rock drummer who is kicked out of his band only to watch it go on to superstardom without him. It’s the tale of “fifth Beatle” Pete Best for the Superbad generation.

We talked to Wilson, who has a legion of fans thanks to his role as The Office’s Dwight Schrute, about stepping out in front (and sitting down behind a drum kit) for his first comic lead.